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Friday, August 19, 2011

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, or at least the rest of your service


Well, it was a big day today.  The time for site announcements arrived, and we finally discovered where our two years of Peace Corps service will actually be spent.  Peace Corps, however, in a very sadistic fashion, has a tradition of requiring trainees to wait all day long and only announce the sites at the end of the day.  I guess now that waterboarding is outlawed, they had to come up with something.  Because of this, the readers will also be required to read the narration of the day’s events before finally finding out what new part of South Africa I will be heading to.
Upon arrival at training this morning, we had our usual weekly debrief where we discuss highs and lows of the past week.  The high I offered was the league soccer game I participated in last Sunday in which I became the first white person to ever compete in that league.  Pretty powerful stuff.  Following the debrief, we engaged in a training session discussing resiliency in life and Peace Corps service and how to go about achieving it.  All of that was well and good, but not nearly as nice as receiving our biweekly living allowance (read money) directly afterward.  With money in my pocket, I headed to eat the lunch I had packed, not taking part in the pizza plan that had been organized or rather disorganized as discussed in the last post.  Shockingly, the pizza had not yet arrived, and I grinned a slight smile of satisfaction in my good judgment as other trainees were forced to sit hungry as I expected would happen.
Following lunch, I have listed “Site Visit Prep” on my calendar, but I think I must have been asleep or just daydreaming about where I would be serving in Africa because I honestly can’t remember what we did.  Despite the protests of the trainees, yet another break was then taken before the site announcements began.  Peace Corps, like I said, takes pleasure in the pain it inflicts on its do-gooders, and so rather than simply quickly announce the sites, we were forced to play a sort of game.  Questions about South Africa were asked and correct answers were rewarded with different types of food.  Only then were sites handed out.  Readers will be happy to know that I correctly answered the question of “Name the 5 African countries that took part in the World Cup last year” and selected a bag of tortilla chips as my prize.  The other Texans in the group also answered their question correctly and duly chose the Mexican salsa.  Needless to say, there will be an all-Texan chips and salsa lunch tomorrow.
Anyways, without further ado, I have been assigned to the Northern Cape region in a township by the name of Ikhutseng.  The site is about 80 km away from the large town of Kimberley.  And yes, Mom, you are now free to Google Map the place.  Apparently, with 25,000 people, I am going to be in one of the most urban sites of all the volunteers.  The description on my paper says that there will be “a lot of opportunities for youth development in business entrepreneurship, life skills, and sports.”  Did anyone else just hear heaven described?  Even better, in addition to my target language of Setswana, Afrikaans, and Xhosa, Nelson Mandela’s native language, are also spoken.  So it looks like I might be able to pick up not one but three new tongues in addition to the ones cow variety that I will undoubtedly be consuming at some point.
Alright, well I feel that this post is beginning to drag a bit, so I will save more information about Ikhutseng until tomorrow.  Before you go, though, remember: let’s be careful out there.

2 comments:

  1. soooooo excited for you!!! sounds like exactly what you want. i foresee you starting soccer leagues.. that is youth development in sports after all, right?

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